Finished the Rice book (which I did like, but it was just so long and dense that I couldn't read it fast). Pretty much stopped the Piper and Bannerman book, but I'll probably work on the former soon. Meanwhile . . .

In His Own Write by John Lennon
and A Spaniard in the Works by John Lennon

Decided to resume reading an old horror novella I bought years ago at a used book store.

The Night of the Wolf by Frank Belknap Long -- part of the Frankenstein Horror Series published by Popular Library some decades back (cover price is 75c), it's about a professor, daughter, and a friend who find a carved wolf head in a cave and thus earn the wrath of a werewolf. I liken it to Hammer-style flicks mixed with classic British horror tales, because the protagonist is introspective to the point of verbosity and talkative in an oddly clinical way, but it all still has this air of menace throughout. Fun fact: the cover/spine/back cover were falling off since I bought it, it is in such poor shape, and my stepdad gave me some glue earlier to get it back on there more permanently.

The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King -- years ago, I was asked by a then-friend/coworker if I ever read The Dark Tower series, and when I said no I was told I would like it and should pick it up. Found a Signet edition which had just released recently and had a new intro by King and was revised and expanded. I like the intro (it's actually got me a bit interested in reading The Stand, which I never put thought towards), but I probably won't make much headway in this until I polish off Night of the Wolf.

edit: Finished The Night of the Wolf. Holy shit, the more I read, the more incredibly verbose this thing got; I really had forgotten just how dragged-out the author made things. Reading this is the literary equivalent to watching grass grow, but with less variation to the content matter. Even the climax was reduced to boringly excessive description.

I usually slip a novel in between trades and regular comics, though that was flip flopped years ago.

The Spaceballs book was OK, the movie is definitely superior. Having not seen the movie in some time, it served to remind me of some scenes but a lot was left out, I think I read it in an hour and a half. Do not recommend.

Reading Neuromancer now and I'm a few chapters in. It's pretty interesting and I like it so far.

Finally finished Black Library's The Beast Arises series the other day. It was a 12-volume depiction of a war between humans and orks (space orcs, way nastier than normal ones). Basically, 1,500 years after the Horus Heresy the orks suddenly return in with insane gravity-based tech and actual military prowess and tear through humanity's empire, bringing everyone to the brink. This volume has the aftermath of the human-ork war and how the human leaders are dealt with by a treacherous member insistent on reform.

This final novel was fairly satisfying, and it had a couple twists that really packed a punch (one you could arguably see coming, but the other was a huge surprise and really made me rethink a lot). I did spoil myself a bit because I thought the ending was going to lead into a specific period for the universe's timeline, so I looked things up online before reading the book and slightly ruined it for myself (not a major letdown or anything, I was just mistaken, but now I'm looking forward to what I wanted to read even more, and hopefully it'll get re-/published some day).

Decided to bite the bullet and grab a couple books from the books/mags section at the market. As both film adaptations are very relevant right now, I purchased Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick) and Ready Player One (Ernest Cline).

I can already hear fearless's approval, since I remember him really liking RPO, and yesterday the clerk at my LCS talked about how me met Dick years and years ago, at the same little gathering where he met Anne Rice, before she was famous (he hadn't read anything by her, since she was just coming out with her larger vampire stuff and had only done small stories before that, which he hadn't read then).

Decided to bite the bullet and grab a couple books from the books/mags section at the market. As both film adaptations are very relevant right now, I purchased Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick)...

Have you ever read PKD before? I envy you your first experience. I even more envy your friend who met him.

Was better than I expected, given how underwhelmed I was by the "Autobiography of James T. Kirk", but not good enough that I feel the need to add it to my collection. I was a bit bummed that it completely ignored any of the backstory or continuing adventures of Picard represented in other novels (even though it didn't remotely limit itself to things that were established in filmed adventures), but I suppose that was unavoidable given that it came from a different publisher.

Unless it was some short in an anthology years ago, no, I have never read Dick's works before, so far as I'm aware; I'm not especially knowledgeable of his writings.

I love PK Dick's work, but I need to read more. I felt Blade Runner was actually deeper than DADoES was, but it's still really good and very different.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mister Ed

Was better than I expected, given how underwhelmed I was by the "Autobiography of James T. Kirk", but not good enough that I feel the need to add it to my collection. I was a bit bummed that it completely ignored any of the backstory or continuing adventures of Picard represented in other novels (even though it didn't remotely limit itself to things that were established in filmed adventures), but I suppose that was unavoidable given that it came from a different publisher.

I didn't know that was a thing. Is there a good web site or resource to know which Trek books are coming out and when?

Just had some lightning in a bottle: my dad's birthday is coming up soon, and I always have trouble getting him something interesting that's relevant to his interests.

I just remembered that years and years ago, when the first Starship Troopers flick was coming out he wanted to give me his old copy of the novel, but didn't have it anymore then, and several years ago for his birthday (or maybe Father's Day, can't remember) I got him a new copy I'd found at a used book store. He was very pleased.

Knowing that Blade Runner and 2049 are very beloved to him, I think I'll get him a copy of Electric Sheep next time I'm at the market. Maybe also Ready Player One, I'm debating it.

Given that, I guess I'll save the Doctor Strange and Fallout gift ideas for Christmas.